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Dessert

Fairy Gingerbread

A gingerbread cake made with butter, brown sugar, milk, bread flour, and ginger, baked thinly in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fairy Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and milk very slowly.

  2. Mix and sift flour and ginger, and combine mixtures.

Spread and bake

  1. Spread very thinly with a broad, long-bladed knife on a buttered, inverted dripping-pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven.

  3. Watch carefully and turn pan frequently during baking, that all may be evenly cooked.

  4. If mixture around edge of pan is cooked before that in the centre, remove pan from oven, cut off cooked part, and return remainder to oven to finish cooking.

  5. Cut in squares before removing from pan.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

757Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the mixture spread thinly and bake crisp.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel note, and helps the biscuit brown during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture to bind the mixture into a spreadable dough.
Bread flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin sheet together as it bakes.
Ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the gingerbread flavour.

The step that matters

Turn the pan and watch the edges. The thin mixture cooks quickly, so edges can overbake before the centre sets. Turning the pan promotes even heat, and removing cooked edges prevents burning while the rest finishes.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, bread, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, bread, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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